Focusing on Southwest China, Innovation and Change, 2019 CAPAS Grand Opening

The 6th Chengdu International Auto Parts and Aftermarket Services Exhibition (CAPAS) was held at Century City New International Convention and Exhibition Center, Chengdu, China from May 23 to 25, 2019. As a large stage to showcase the booming southwestern auto market, this year's CAPAS exhibition area reached 48,000 square meters, with a total of 612 exhibitors from all over the world gathered together.

Ms. Shaolan Zhou, Deputy General Manager of Messe Frankfurt (HK) Ltd., said: "This year's CAPAS has many highlights. By better grasping the current needs and policy orientation of the southwest automobile market, exploring the regional industry and consumption characteristics, and continuously optimizing the exhibit structure, including expanding warranty, supply chain and terminal chain areas, and creating supplies and modification areas that meet the interests of terminal car owners. In addition, a number of forums, training and interactive exchanges and other theme activities were held during the same period, proposing solutions to various industry pain points and providing diversified services to enhance communication and docking between supply and demand sides."

Huang Li, Vice President of the Sichuan Provincial Committee of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, said: "Automobile manufacturing is an important part of the "5+1" modern industrial system that Sichuan is striving to build. CAPAS targets the development needs of Sichuan's automobile industry, deepens the integration of "exhibition + industry + functional zone + investment promotion", and continuously strives to increase the parts matching rate of vehicle companies in Sichuan, and comprehensively promotes the accelerated development of the automobile industry. This year, 14 key cities and prefectures in the province joined together to participate in the exhibition, and launched investment projects in key cities and prefectures and parks such as Nanchong, Yibin, and Guang'an."

Aiming at market demand, seven special zones deeply interpret industry trends

In 2019, CAPAS further optimized the product display area to improve the accuracy of procurement and matching. Seven major areas were optimized and upgraded, including the spare parts procurement area, supplies and modification area, warranty/supply chain and terminal chain area, commercial vehicle area, Sichuan enterprise display area, tire area and new energy area. It attracted excellent brands including Hengst, K&N, Ruili, Petro-Canada, Adient, Gaia, Snap-on, SATA, Knorr-Bremse, Wabco, Anrich, Chuannan Shock Absorption, Jinhong Crankshaft, Weimar and Chengke to join.

China has entered a new era of consumption. With personalized and quality consumption upgrading, the development potential of the automobile consumption market cannot be underestimated. The supplies and modification area keeps up with the trend of the times. In addition to a rich product display, a three-day CAPAS car modification dance party will be held in the on-site activity area. Whether it is professional modification and self-driving tour theme explanations, fierce F1 simulation racing competitions, or interesting activities such as the Anrich Tire Rally that promotes sports and health, they all explain the deep demand of consumers in the southwest region for automobile culture. The event has received great support from many powerful brand companies, reflecting the trend of industry brands transitioning and transforming to terminal car owner brands.

The warranty, supply chain and terminal chain area focuses on the characteristics of the strong demand for auto parts distribution in the southwest region but the relatively traditional model, providing an effective way for foreign supply chain brands to enter the southwest market and help local distribution channels transform and develop. The area brings together powerful companies such as Kaisi and Santouliubi, whose products cover supply chain, e-commerce platform, data software management, chain and other aspects, providing comprehensive integrated solutions for terminal stores. The supporting heavyweight conference 2019 Southwest Automotive Aftermarket Summit Forum focuses on the supply chain and terminal store survival and development status of the southwest automotive aftermarket in the Internet era, providing an efficient platform for aftermarket practitioners to deeply understand industry information and interactive communication.

Sichuan has made new energy and smart cars one of the 16 key industries to be cultivated, vigorously promoting the upgrading of the automobile industry. The new energy zone seizes the opportunity to bring together mainstream domestic and Sichuan new energy vehicle brands and supporting products. In addition, the zone also attracted the participation of the Hong Kong New Energy Automobile Industry Exhibition Group, which is composed of the Hong Kong Auto Parts Research and Development Center and its 24 powerful high-tech companies. The products involve hot fields such as green transportation, materials and manufacturing, and intelligence and mobility.

The 2019 China New Energy Vehicle International Cooperation Conference is linked with the New Energy Zone, with the theme of "Driving New and Intelligent Travel". In view of the current trend of the new energy and intelligent vehicle industry, combined with the development and investment needs of the automobile industry in Sichuan Province, speeches were given on topics such as "Automotive Intelligent Networking: Reshaping the Automobile Industry Ecology" and "New Travel: User Travel Service Innovation Becomes a Trend". Special activities such as the promotion and negotiation of new energy vehicle industry projects, the 5G+ Internet of Vehicles Industry Development Summit, and the Chengdu-made new energy vehicle product supply and demand matchmaking meeting were held in conjunction with the conference.

Focus on regional characteristics and provide market development and precise docking services

CAPAS continues to innovate its service concept, striving to provide exhibitors and visitors with a more refined and personalized participation experience. In order to meet the exhibitors' desire for more high-quality buyers, CAPAS has carried out a series of exhibition audience organization work, through in-depth exploration of huge industry resources, and carried out omni-channel promotion such as ground promotion negotiations. The scale of the professional audience group of this exhibition will increase by 20%; the nature of the audience will be more diverse, such as continuing to increase the proportion of terminal store audiences, adding new fleets and logistics companies to participate, etc.; the audience group representative area is more in-depth in the key areas of the southwest, focusing on exploring the potential procurement needs of Chongqing and Meishan, Zigong and Suining in Sichuan Province, and strengthening the matching degree between buyers and sellers in the region.

The Invited Buyer Club is the first exclusive service provided by CAPAS to large purchasers. Through pre-show demand analysis, precise matching during the show, and all-round customized services after the show, the success rate of exhibitors in seeking high-quality buyers has been greatly improved. Mr. Zhang Hua, Director of the Purchasing Department of Wuxi CRRC Hofer Powertrain System Co., Ltd., said: "Our company is engaged in the CRRC-Hofer new energy vehicle powertrain project. This time we came to Chengdu to participate in CAPAS mainly to understand and purchase electric powertrain parts and sub-assemblies. Sichuan and Chongqing are one of the famous automobile production bases in the country, and new energy vehicles are booming as the government's main industry. The organizer of the exhibition thoughtfully provided invited buyer services to improve the efficiency of negotiations and matching at the exhibition site."

Market development is a service that CAPAS has provided in recent years. It maximizes the advantages of the exhibition's rich industry resources and channel network in the southwest automobile market, and provides various market consulting, business development and product promotion services to foreign or local companies. The development targets include vehicle factories, manufacturers, dealers and terminal stores. The projects implemented include Sichuan automobile industry project promotion and negotiation, excellent terminal store visit projects and 4S group visits.

It is worth mentioning that this year’s CAPAS specifically targets key cities and states in Sichuan Province and the automotive industry.

The park's investment attraction project specifically explores the development needs of enterprises in Zhejiang Province, a major automotive industry base, and invites six major industrial bases in Hangzhou, Jinhua, Yuhuan, Ruian, Pinghu, and Longquan, as well as local leading enterprises, to participate in the integrated promotion of the superior products of Zhejiang's automotive parts industry. The exhibition area will be a Sichuan-Zhejiang auto parts industry docking exhibition area, which will be displayed on the same stage with the exhibition groups of various cities and prefectures. At the same time, it will also build a bridge of cooperation for the automotive industries of the two provinces through various forms such as project docking, exchanges and negotiations.